Heart of Gold
by Johanna Night
Summary: Underneath a safe of stone, there was always a heart of gold. Drew was just trained to hide it.


Underneath a safe of stone, there was a heart of gold.

Maybe Drew wasn't gorgeous like the others—at least, not that she knew. Her mother was dead, and that made her stand out like a pimple on porcelain skin. Even at that age, she knew pimples were bad.

"If you weren't born, she would never have left." She grew used to those words, fed by lies and scandals and years of bitterness that came with her father wherever he went. "At least she was beautiful. Don't try to deny it."

"Don't lie, Tanaka," her teacher sneered with a face of stone. "Don't make up lies that your mother is dead." She couldn't possibly have known that the little girl truly had no mother, but this didn't matter.

The next day, everything she said was a lie.

"You worthless bitch," her father snapped. Drew was only ten. "Your mother was the most beautiful woman on the planet, but you just might be the ugliest." The words stung more than she cared to admit. She wished so badly to be beautiful it hurt.

She thought teachers were supposed to be helpful. "What's a bitch?" Drew asked, genuinely curious. She didn't know it was a bad word, but the teacher did.

"Drew Tanaka!" Her face was suddenly furious and Drew couldn't understand what she did wrong. "Don't ask questions you already know the answer to!" The entire class laughed, and she sat down with tears blinding her eyes.

She was thirteen when she went to camp.

The first thing she knew when she walked through the borders was 'I don't fit in.' There were people, dressed in camp shirts and armor, riding pegasi and fighting like they were born to do so. That wasn't what she noticed, though.

What she noticed was they were all beautiful.

That night she was claimed. Goddess of love and beauty? It was a harsh, cruel joke, and she waited impatiently for Aphrodite to claim her mistake. It never happened. It would never happen.

Drew Tanaka was a daughter of Aphrodite.

She joined the others in the pink dollhouse. Racks of perfume lined the walls, and everything she could've ever wanted was there. She should've been happy, ecstatic with what she had. She'd wanted it all her life, after all.

Instead she was angry. Every bottle of perfume winked at her, proudly telling her, "you're not beautiful." She didn't feel beautiful. Harsh glares and the rolls of eyes greeted her whenever she claimed her spot at the dinner table.

The first time she charm spoke someone, it was an accident.

A boy was walking by her cabin window during cabin inspection, and he stopped to look inside. Immediately, he wrinkled his nose and stepped back. "I should take off points for this," he scoffed, wincing at the smell. "It smells like a perfume shop."

Fury rose inside her even though she agreed. When she stepped forward she found they were nose to nose. "My cabin is beautiful," she snapped, forcing as much anger into her tone as possible. "Say it," she demanded. "Say it!"

His eyes glazed. He blinked twice, glanced around, and opened his mouth. "Your cabin is beautiful," he repeated, robotic and emotionless. Then he blinked again, and the glaze was gone. "What?" Before he could go on, she slammed the door in his face.

The first thoughts that came to Drew's mind were good. She thought of all the things she could do, the truths she could force from e mouths of those who'd lied.

But then another girl—her own sibling— came forward one day and proudly, so proudly looked her dead in the eye. "Look at Drew," she announced, scoffing. "A daughter of Aphrodite? As if. Mom was probably drunk when she had her."

Her fury came faster than she thought possible. In a blur of pink she was up and in the girl's face, her cheeks heating in anger. "I am a daughter of Aphrodite," she snarled. Manicured hands clenched into fists. "I am!"

"You are," the girl intoned, her gaudy violet eyes glazed. As her cabin mates stared at her with awe and a smudge of fear, she realized with a start that maybe she liked being feared. It was better than being hated in her book.

* * *

Her dictatorship ended when Piper showed up. In just a span of weeks, she scooped up and tossed out the tattered pieces of Drew in her perfect hands. Suddenly her sisters eyed her with anger and mistrust, replacing the fear and shockingly, idolism that had once blazed in their beautiful depths. Suddenly Piper was their Idol, and she didn't like it one bit.

That was the first time Drew felt jealousy in a long, long time.

The second was when she met Percy. The hero of Olympus was gorgeous, no doubt, with those sea green eyes she instantly fell in love with. Then she chided herself. 'He's a boy,' she scolded the way her heart beat faster.

Then she saw the way Annabeth kissed him, the way his eyes sparkled like gems at the sight. And she knew then that whatever she did, she would always be second best.

She still had to try.

Being nice after being stone hearted for so long was difficult, but for the first time she mustered a genuine smile all for him. Stares of shock were directed towards her cabin, but to her it was worth it.

Slowly he started to notice her.

The time he waved back when she fluttered her fingers at him brought heat to her face, and that moment she knew just how hard she'd fallen. Somehow, she liked it more than she should have.

Finally she understood what it was like to be loved. When he trudged into her cabin with tears staining his tanned skin, she wanted to kill the architect of Olympus for daring to leave this perfect boy.

She still wanted to even after he told her it was mutual.

The first time he kissed her was like Elysium on earth. For years she had scoffed when Lacy or the others gushed about kissing, but all she knew was a simple touch of the lips—something easily forgotten, simple as that.

How wrong she was.

Her head exploded in fireworks, colors mixing and blending inside her mind. All she could think and feel and taste was him, and she couldn't imagine whto the underworld was like if this was how his lips felt. She felt hot and cold all at the same time, and when they pulled away she could only smile giddily like a little schoolgirl.

* * *

Five years later, when he proposed, he remembered not to buy her a pink gem but a green one. He remembered her favorite food was not the slimming diet pills, but the meals at McDonalds. He remembered that though she was still beautiful as ever, this time she was beautiful inside and out.

She couldn't have been happier to become Mrs. Jackson.


End file.
